Optimal tag selection scheme for a backscatter communication system over the independent but not necessarily identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels

This letter analyses the outage performance of the optimal tag selection scheme for the proposed backscatter communication system. The consumed power by the tag's circuit is considered and the harvested power is described using the non‐linear model. On the premise of the harvested power satisfying its own consumption, the tag that can maximise the received effective signal‐to‐noise ratio at the destination is selected to convey its own information. The analytical results of the outage probability for the proposed optimal tag selection scheme are derived over the independent but not necessarily identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels, and the diversity order is also obtained with the help of the derived high signal‐to‐noise ratio approximations. The numerical results verify our theoretical analysis and show that the proposed optimal tag selection scheme has the best performance compared to other counterparts under different parameter set‐ups.